Big Wave Surfing, Mt. Bachelor Style

A “Big Wave” contest in the middle of Oregon at Mt Bachelor? I had my doubts when I first heard about it, but once I heard Gerry Lopez was the one putting it on I knew it would be awesome, the dude is a legend. If you are not familiar with surfing, he is Mr. Pipeline, surfing the North Shore before anyone else would, frequently visiting the green room and not to mention being an all around badass in blockbuster hits such as North Shore and Conan the Barbarian. Now he just shreds tons of pow, does a lot of yoga and now puts on snowboarding contests.

Apparently people still own hardboots.

There were no double or triple corks just a 100+ competitors, 8 years old to 60, slashing everything they could, trying to get tubed, catching airs, a few floaters, hand plants and even a few backies. After judging 300 runs of slashes and airs it was clear who came out on top. Kellan Broderick dominated in practice but could not stay on his feet during his run. Josh Dirksen got the most creative line award but missed a few too many of the waves to end up on the podium. Gabriel Triplette was loose and aggressive, charging his way to 4th. Old man Dave Reynolds had the best 360 revert of the day and also was the only competitor to un-strap lay on his snowboard and paddle into one of the waves surfing himself into 3rd place. Volcom filmer Jake Price promised me a cameo in the next Volcom movie so he got 2nd.

The view from the judges stand.

After winning the “Where You Been” award at the Holy Oly, Allister Shultz shows no sign of slowing down. He was the only person to score a perfect 10 from the judges with huge airs, high speed slashing and even getting inverted winning himself a custom shaped Gerry Lopez surfboard. The sun was out, everyone was having a good time, but next year I hope to see Scott Stevens and Chris Beresford in the contest because they would both do some serious damage to a course like this. Good job Gerry on bringing a new contest to snowboarding because we all know we don’t need anymore rail jams.